Population movement in the USSR under late Stalinism was determined in part by informal labour regions, as confirmed by this study of migration to, from, and within the oblasti of Moscow, Sverdlovsk and Kuibyshev over 1945-53. Every Soviet region at the end of the war was characterized by intense pressure on available sources of labour but partly because of this distinct “labour regions” can be identified. While all three areas under analysis were in the RSFSR and unoccupied, or largely unoccupied, during the war, they differed sufficiently from one another to highlight regional particularities.